It's that time of year again, when we get the first Balance of Performance tables for the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship season.
In all four aspects of the BoP, we have compared the new values against the values from the final race of 2024, held in Bahrain, and the first race of 2024, held in Qatar. While it's very hard to know what this all means, it can at least give some context to the 2025 numbers.
Weight
The first thing to note is most cars are lighter than they ran in 2024. This doesn't apply to all — Porsche are considerably heavier now, running at 1064, the second heaviest car of the field. Toyota's GR010 remains the same weight it did at Bahrain, but is considerably lighter than the 1089kg it ran at in Qatar last year.
Toyota struggled with a lack of pace at the first race of the season last year, so it's good to see it's been evened out a bit now.
Ferrari are running considerably lighter than last year, at 1037kg. It will be interesting to see how this affects the 499P and its balance.
Cadillac are both running at minimum weight, 1030kg. Peugeot is just 1kg heavier, the same the old 9X8 ran at Qatar last year, in its final race before the new car was introduced. The French squad will surely be hoping for big things considering they were five minutes away from getting a podium last year.
Alpine are lighter than they were in 2024, while BMW are just 1kg heavier than at Bahrain last year. Both cars had impressive ends of the year so it'll be interesting to see if the form can be maintained.
And new boys Aston Martin come in at 1042kg with the Valkyrie, slightly lighter than Alpine but heavier than BMW and Cadillac, plus fellow LMH-rules rival Peugeot.
Power (before 250kph)
As you can see, Peugeot have been given very consistent power BoP, at 520kW for all three races. They are at least 12kW heavier than everyone else, with Alpine and Porsche both on 508kW.
Ferrari's 499P will be the least powerful car in the field, at 501kW, while Toyota only fare slightly better, at 503kW. Everyone else is between Ferrari and Alpine/Porsche, including the Valkyrie at 504kW.
Power (after 250kph)
Peugeot go from the most powerful car in the field, to the least. The 9X8 will lose 5.8% power after the car passes the 250kph mark. If the French squad are the biggest loser in terms of power after 250kph, Toyota are the biggest gainer, at 3.4%.
Ferrari won't lose any power at all, while Porsche will gain 0.8%.
Keep in mind the power loss/gain after 250kph was only introduced mid-season last year, so there are no stats for Qatar 2024.
Energy per stint
Finally, you can see in the table that energy per stint differed massively at Qatar last year, but this year it is a bit more equal.
The highest is 909MJ, for Toyota and Porsche, while the lowest is 897, for Ferrari. Last year Toyota had 914MJ at Qatar to use per stint; they were doing 32 lap stints, equating to 28.5MJ used per lap. Ferrari, meanwhile, were doing 31 lap stints with 902. Porsche, too, were doing 32 lap stints with 900MJ.
Feature image: DPPI / WEC
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